How To Name And Pronounce Colors In German

Color words are one of the most useful tools we have for identifying things. It’s a lot easier to say “I’ll have the blue one” than “I’ll take that roundish one, with the rough edges, to the left of the rectangular one.” Thus, learning how to name and pronounce colors in German is a useful skill to have in your back pocket.

A brief usage note: colors in German are adjectives and so, for the most part, they come before the noun when you’re describing something. “The red car” would be “das rote Auto.” Here, there is also often an ending -e added when the color comes before a noun. And when you want to say “light blue” or “dark blue” the words for “light” and “dark” are appended to the front of the color word, as you see with hellblau (light blue). With that knowledge, here are the basic terms to get you started.

German and English share common roots, but there are tons of false cognates you’ll need to sidestep if you want to avoid embarrassment. Here are 12 of the most amusing (and kinda NSFW) German false friends.

Thomas grew up in suburban Massachusetts, and moved to New York City for college. He studied English literature and linguistics at New York University, but spent most of his time in college working for the student paper. Because of this, he has really hard opinions about AP Style. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and getting angry about things on Twitter. He's spent a lot of time trying to learn Spanish, and has learned a little German.

Thomas grew up in suburban Massachusetts, and moved to New York City for college. He studied English literature and linguistics at New York University, but spent most of his time in college working for the student paper. Because of this, he has really hard opinions about AP Style. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and getting angry about things on Twitter. He's spent a lot of time trying to learn Spanish, and has learned a little German.